On March 5, 1944, Drewelow was piloting the B-24 on a bombing mission against Japanese targets over the Hansa Bay area of Papua New Guinea. The aircraft and crew disappeared on that mission in heavy thunderstorms.

No radio transmissions were ever received from the crew, and subsequent searches did not locate them. After the war, U.S. Army graves registration teams conducted wide searches in New Guinea without success.

In early 1989, the former curator of the Air War Museum in Port Moresby, New Guinea, notified the U.S. Army Central Identification Laboratory Hawaii (CILHI), that wreckage of a B-24 had been located in Tauta, Mandang Province.

Between July 1989 and August 1990, three CILHI teams located, investigated and excavated the site, recovering remains and artifacts associated with the crash. The remains were transported to CILHI where the forensic process included the use of mitochondrial DNA to confirm the identification of each of the crewmembers.

Of the more than 88,000 American service members still missing in action from all conflicts, 78,000 are from World War II.